Monday, July 8, 2013

Geek Girl

Those of you who dip your toes into the ocean that is Twitter may have noticed me mentioning a book for silly, soppy girls, called Geek Girl, by Holly Smale. In the interests of full disclosure, I have to say right now that I met Holly at the Harper Collins Summer Party last week and, well... she's kind of besotted with me. It's a thing, it happens, it's perfectly natural, so let's all move past it without making Holly feel at all self-conscious.

Thank you.

I exchanged a few tweets with her a few weeks ago, then visited her twitter page. I figured if she was half as funny in her book as she is on twitter, it'd be a book worth reading. So I bought it, and I've just finished it.

My Review of Geek Girl

Geek Girl is a book about a girl who is a geek. There are no ninjas in it. Virtually no one dies. There are two haircuts (one planned, one not). There are bizarre characters. There is one tremendously awful bully that makes you want to punch the page. There are clothes and shoes.

And DESPITE all the lack of bloodshed... this book is brilliant.

Harriet is 15 years old. She's a geek. She likes facts and figures and doing her homework. She's not exactly popular in school. She's just... weird. Her mind works in unusual ways. When she's plucked from her life and told she's going to be a model she thinks everything is going to get better— she's going to change and suddenly be cool and have friends...

There are lines in this book that will make you laugh out loud. There are jokes. One liners. Gags. Set ups and payoffs. It may deal with popularity (or lack of same), and it may deal with bullying, and insecurity, and it may play with the myth of metamorphosis... but even when Harriet is at her most vulnerable, she is never less than hilarious.

If it helps, you can think of Harriet as the younger sister to Clarabelle, in the Skulduggery books. She is, literally, THAT weird. And THAT loveable.

*dances* IT'S IN HIS DNAD-D-D-DNAIT'S IN HIS DNAAND HE JUST TAKES MY BREATH AWAYBR-BR-BR-BREATH AWAYI FEEL IT EVERYDAYAND THAT'S WHAT MAKES A MAN*remixes WMYB into it*BUT WHEN YOU SMILE AT THE GROUNDIT AIN'T HARD TO TELLYOU DON'T KNOWOH OHYOU DON'T KNOW YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL

heyoo Derek cant wait till book 8 im counting down the days its gonna b like an early bday pressie cuz my bdays the start of september (8th) love the sound of this book because it weirdly sounds like what would happen if u put me and my friends together...except the model part xxx ps whens the exquisite corpse winner going to be announced? xxx

WELL. WE basically saved Trip and people started to ship the two of us, making Adrip/Tadra. Then while the festives began, some guy named Alastair Cruciatus shows up, (whom I knew through Zaf) and we basically got slaughtered.

For the past few days we've been trying to free Zaf, then Aretha, then Aretha and Alexis (Zaf's daughter) from being trapped inside his head (with 48 other true names).

Two days ago, we trapped him in a bound room, and the room began to collapse and all attacks (magical and non-magical) just rebounded and hit us. Alastair used some of his life force to keep the room from collapsing, and it snapped back and hit him

So he had 24 hours to live, which ended last night where he went back in time and switched into Niccolo, who was the guy who originally lived in the body before Alastair took over and I tried to save Niccolo (along with some weird red dust stuff)

Hmm, Geek Girl sounds good. I shall keep an eye out :3I GOT A NEW BOOK TODAY :3 Well, actually, I got three, but two were from Book Depository (unfortunately not Skulduggery) and the other one was half price at Crow Books ^-^

As I looked at my child's green eyesI couldn't find the strength to tell her.So all I said was"Dad is now a star.The angels took him backBecause he was the brightest star in the entire universe.When he was down here the sky was not as bright as it was when he was up there with them"

:'("

And the last verse made me cry.And I thought I should tell you.

I HAVE READ VERY FEW BOOKS SET IN REAL LIFE THAT WERE WORTH ANYTHING. I HAVE READ SOME THAT WERE PRETTY GOOD, BUT ONLY TWO THAT WERE AWESOME, AND THEM AWESOME ONES PROVED TO ME THAT THEY EXISTED, SO I SHALL READ IT, DEREK. :)

At some point.

If I see it in the library.

Because I'm trying to save money and there are otehr books I need to buy.

(The worst ending in the universe was when, in this book series, the main characters accidentally got cloned so it ended up that they could live in their own worlds and live with each other at the same time (an A and a B in A's world, and an A and a B in B's world.)

Ohmygosh, The Infernal Devices ended TERRIBLY.

I was so angry.

I'm incredibly happy that I can rely on Derek to give us a good ending.

(By 'good', I mean 'realistic with people being unhappy.' By 'terrible', I mean 'totally unrealistic with incredibly likely things occuring to make every single person live happily ever after when REALITY ISN'T LIKE THAT.)

(I'm not against happy endings, I'm just against insane happy endings where horrible choices don't suddenly get resolved so that both sides can be picked.)

(See, if the last thingy at the end of TID hadn't existed, it would have been a good happy ending. The last chapter thingy (I remembered the special name but then I forgot it) just made it insanely stupid and unrealistic.)

If TMI ends terribly, I will literally cry. I will. It's such a brilliant series and if it has a crap ending it will let it all down and I will cry. TID isn't as bad beacuse it's a prequel to the original with less books, but so much years and work and epicness went into TMI - it CANNOT end crappily. It cannot. D:

Sometimes, when you think you are, people just haven't included you yet because you only popped in for one comment.

I tend to just act like people have been here forever when they appear unless they say hi, because I'm absent-minded, and I don't reply to everyone, so it's normal for me not to speak to someone who just pops in and says something random for one comment.

Other people may be like me.

If you stick around, you'll be ignored less.

Yes?

*hugs*

I'm not trying to blame you. All I'm trying to do is make you see that not all of us hate you.

@Zaf: The first book in TMI is City of Bones. The movie comes out in August, btwwwwwww. Then it's CIty of Ashes, then City of Glass, the City of Fallen Angels, then CIty of Lost Souls. For TID it's Clockwork Angel, then Clockwork Prince, then Clockwork Princess.

I LOVE WILL. MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER IN THE WHOLE THING INCLUDING TMI. <3MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER IN TMI AND MY SECOND FAVOURITE CHARACTER IN THE WHOLE THING IS SIMON.

Especially when I'm the one everyone constantly goes to for help and advice. When I only exist when I'm needed.

Bad timing? Yeah, whatever. Not like I've dropped everything or risked my exam results for you guys before. Nope. I'd never "forget" to do work to help a friend who needs me, because I'm a stupid, selfish bitch!

I've tried making multiple comments, Star, so what you've said is BS!

You guys just ignored me, when I needed you the most.When I was most alone.Even my e-mails and Facebook messages seem to be ignored... Hah.

I should have expected as much, really... I always get forgotten when people get what they want.

I really wanted to email you, but I was selfish and couldn't be bothered to. Lazy. It was compkete and utter laziness. I kept putting it off until the last minute, then said "I don't need to intrude, I'll mess everything up."

So I didn't.

Because I'm a screw up :)

But if you ever need anyone, even if you don't feel like you want help, I'm here.

I am not going to insist that we are all saints and that you are mistaken/correct, because at the end of the day, I can only see inside one head. I can only answer for myself, and anything else I say is just guessing.

So.

I have been insanely busy all last week. Everyone knows that. I've barely been here. Maybe I have ignored you. If I have, I'm really, sincerely sorry. You can accept my apology or not, but I will never stop feeling even if I forget about it, because I will always be subconsciously sorry. I can never justify my ignoring you when I wasn't either not there or going in five seconds.

If you want help, all you have to do is email me. If someone emails me saying something, I will always reply, even if that reply is not immediate because of me not noticing or doing something.

But you have to let me know you're feeling crap.

Because I am not a mind reader.

And I am a lazy person who does not read between lines very well.

I will only looking deeply at what you're saying if I deem it important (this goes for everyone).

And if they're not upset or saying something meaningful (meaningful to them also counts), why would it be important to my brain which skims lightly over these masses of words?

I think an apology is in order there as well.So sorry.*hugs*

I also rarely say hi to people who appear without saying hi when there ae multiple people on, which is something to remember.

And, I'm sorry. *hugs*

Really, all I can do is apologise.

And if you hate me, that's okay. Sometimes, people laugh at me beacuse I've done something stupid. It's rather mean of them. But often I think, if I'm creating laughter, that's good, I'm happy to do that, even if the only way I'm doing it is looking stupid and being made fun of. And I automatically laugh when other people laugh, so when they laugh at me, I generally laugh along. Which not only reassures them I'm good with it, it also cuts the sting off for me.If you hate me, that's okay. I don't mind. I don't hate people because they hate me. You're amazing. You're one of the most amazing people on this planet and although you may hate me, hey, at least you exist.

@Maraness: *hugs* What? How is any of this your fault? *laughs*What on earth did you do? :)*can honestly not see it at all* *can't even see how you see it, and I usually can with these things*

@Fabi: *hands her a bravery medal*

I'm such a coward, did you all know?You know those people who say one thing with one group of people and something completely different with another?I'm practically one of them, because I want to keep the peace so badly. -_-I don't ever make stuff up, though. Just making that completely clear. If I express an opinion, I mean that truthfully. :)

It's so odd. The older Bloglandians have spent all year wanting the insane rping back, and now it's back, and it's creating tension. :)

Just for the record, I think both roleplaying and chatting are awesome.

Sorry, had to delete that. Trying to fix the problem, but if some people see that, they might blame themselves. And if anyone else leaves.... I'll probably 201-202-001-200-202 010-200-100-112-021. That was a threat, do you hear?

Guys some of us just want to have a really good role play... We haven't in a long time. We can comment OOC more, yeah, but we want to do this as well...

And I'm sorry for everyone who has a bad life or feels left out. I wish there was something I could do to help you all, but maybe we should instead of making one liners, we should go to someone directly... Otherwise I'm sure you all will get ignored and we can't have that.

Can't we all just agree that we all have something in life that SUCKS SHIT? And that no we're not alone. We need to have a day every month or something where we all get on a chat room or something and talk it out?

I don't think taking problems to the blog is a good idea. That's me personally and I am not stopping you, but I'm just saying... If you need someone, it might be best to do it over PM...

@Maranessy: Why are you scared to email ME? *hurridly hides weapons of mass destruction behind a rock that isn't Eve*

Seriously though - I can totally get why you are, because I kind of am, but you don't have to be afraid of me. I'd like to say I won't judge, but I analyse a lot of stuff and will probably judge something although that something may not be you, and you may want be to judge something, so maybe the correct reply is - I won't judge the fact you mailed me (I don't analyse that beacuse I don't really think about it) and I won't judge against you. :)

Ok, it seems to me like the real problem here is that we don't have separate places to roleplay and talk seriously, or just chat. These comments are all we've got, and sometimes they're not enough. I don't think the roleplaying is bad. I don't think everybody just chatting is bad. I think it's fine that people want to do one or the other or both. I am genuinely sorry for anyone I ignored while I was roleplaying. I am not trying to excuse myself in any way when I say this, but it is difficult to keep track of roleplays and other comments, and when your head is preoccupied in a storyline, it can be difficult to notice when someone needs help. Again, I don't mean to excuse myself in any way with that, I'm just trying to pinpoint all the problems to better come up with a solution. Several people who needed it have emailed me while I was roleplaying, and I responded to them rather promptly and did the best I could, as I always do. Luci has never emailed me before, so... But again, I'm not excusing myself. If people have a right to roleplay here they also have a right to seek comfort here from others, or just pleasant conversation. So I don't feel it's right to say 'if you need help, send an email' and dis-include everyone else from talking here, because we all have a right to, and sometimes a need to. So, in conclusion... I think the problem is that we need some method where we can either roleplay and speak normally simultaneously, or we need a different place for roleplaying. Maybe the roleplayers can jump down a post, or something...? I don't really know about a solution yet, but I think that's our problem.

I think we do have a right to roleplay here, but some people need to talk about things- get stuff off their backs and ask for help- and they shouldn't feel driven away by the roleplaying. But it's difficult to say we'll just do them simultaneously, because I don't know about others, but when I'm roleplyaing on here it's hard for me to notice everything else. We need some kind of separation, I think, but I don't know how best to go about that.

Well if we roleplay we need to make it obvious we are roleplaying say Derek comes on and doesnt want to rp but will chat that means we can respond to him in ( ) and in rolepkay without the ( ) that makes sense to me

I've noticed as well... It's like reading a book. You get in the book zone that sometimes you don't notice others or really want to, because you're in it, and it's exciting.I'm sorry I couldn't have been there for you all, and you've told me your side. Please try and understand mine as well...

@Aretha: I have thought of and suggested being on separate posts before, but on email, so. :/

The only flaw is - I spent an hour today reading the comments after I got back from school. That is normal. It takes up so much of my life. If I had to spend two hours doing it . . . I would die. D:But I do agree that that is selfish.What would happen is, I would just utterly stop rping.

Look see, the roleplaying has been dying down recently. I think what we've been doing the past few days - some roleplaying, some chatting - is good. But my reasons for dissing separate posts are entirely selfish so don't stop for that. :)

I feel both sides, Adra. I love the rolelaying, it's epic - although I've barely been involved it it because business, the comments are so fun to read. :)

However, I have missed chatting, and I've missed my usual blogfriends who usually chat but haven't been here because rolplaying.

I'm sitting on the fence AGAIN and I just want to bang my had against a brick wall beacuse I'm sick of it. -_-Actually, I take that back. Brick walls hurt. I want o bang my head against a carpeted floor. :)

Fabi- I don't like the idea of separating Blogland either, I just don't see how we can do both at once. I know we sometimes do what Zaf proposed (speaking OOC like this), and that might work for most people, I don't know about others, but I know that for me, anyway, it's really difficult to pull off. But maybe that's just because I have to write for two people.

Okay so youight not agree with this but it seems to me that some people want to talk about serious stuff and others want to role play right? So how about.... hmm... that ones a tricky one. Okay so people get really engrossed in the roleplay and tend to forget about the real world. Well it would.be to long to say roleplay one week and serious another because roleplays random and serious happens when serious happens soo.... Okay if you want to talk about something during a roleplay you could call a momentary ceasefire by I dunno pitting ceasefire in caps. Then if you want to burst into spontanious roleplau why don't you put < > them around it like when we put * that around things to signify an action Us that a good idea?

I try to speak OOC and sometimes succeed, but rarely. I typically have a hard time figuring out whether or not people need help anyway, but when I'm roleplaying- as two different people, no less- it's near impossible for me. If it's difficult for me, it might be difficult for other people too- that was my thought. And if Luci has commented (which she has) while we were roleplaying and not a single one of us ended up helping her, there's clearly a problem that needs to be addressed.I actually really want to get back to the roleplay, too- it's been rather traumatizing for me, also- but I think this is more important and we have to deal with it first.

I see what you mean, Mara, but it would be different... Because we'd still be split up, and it wouldn't feel the same, you know? Because it wouldn't be Derek's Blog. And I just don't think it will be as appealing.

Although actually, if you think about it, we kind of DO. The MC is essentially a roleplaying blog, except it's in the form of chapters. O_O

If there's a separate blog for it, Maraness, there will be separate communites. We'll lose a lot of the rpers and the rpers will lose me, sorry. It's not that I like chatting better than roleplaying, it's just that sooner of later, let's think about sooner, I will just go THIS IS TAKING TOO MUCH TIME AND I JUST CANNOT FUCKING BE BOTHERED and leave, because that is EXACTLY what happened with MC. It was too time-consuming, I was getting majorly left behind, and you wouldn't have missed me, so I left.That will happen with a rp blog.

*points at Star's comment* I agree- I don't think people will be willing to be so up front about it and cause a huge fuss, even if they really need to.

If most people are actually capable of speaking normally and within the roleplay simultaneously, then I guess it's fine, but the thing is it has to actually work. I usually roleplay as two characters at once and, as Adra pointed out, sometimes three, so I get that it might be a lot harder for me than the rest of you. And, now that I think about it, if I go by my own standards, me being able to roleplay as two characters should prove that people can do both things at once. But I just keep thinking of what Luci said, and she did comment, and was pretty much ignored. So were a few other people- everybody had to yell for a few minutes if they wanted to get a reply. So I'm just saying we need to make sure that doesn't happen.

Mara! *hugs* I just don't want you to feel bad because your idea was pretty much immediately shot down... We all love you, really! *hugs again* No offense intended, I swear! Please do not feel unwanted!

How about when we post, when we join the do or the talk, we say: *joins rp* or *joins talk* because if you're rping, chances are you're going to not really pay attention.And brackets can work but people are going to forget and one party doesn't really want to to brackets while the other doesn't have to. (For either one) And then there's the issue with feelings and needing to talk. I know that it's scary and sometimes you feel ignored, but we all have to try harder at that... I know we all aren't exactly social penguins over here... But if everyone tries to work harder at answering you guys... Could you all maybe try more at addressing us? So we know when to help.

I'm not sure how well it'll work as a long-term solution, though... Like, with this all fresh in our minds, we'll be more considerate of other people who aren't in the roleplay, but after a while, I'm worried that'll fade and we'll be back here...

It would be hard for me to speak seriousy and rp at the same time. I have a hard enough time rping anyway, beacusew you CANNOT multitask, ad even without multitasking, I sometimes am only just keeping up.

I can't write out long, heartfelt speeches and roleplay.

We can't properly help people with our hearts and souls and make them feel like we properly care if we're rping at the same time. It's too halfhearted.

G2g now guys when a solution is reached can someone remember it then comment it near the top of the next blog so I can find it. *hugs everyone* *hands everyone a cookie* *waves* *is surrounded by shadows and when the shadows clear is GONE*

And we can wipe out all bad thoughts and feeling and let them go. We need to find a system that works, but we all need to acknowledge that some people need the help, but sometimes won't say it directly, and some people role play, and are too busy to answer. Simultaneously, no party wants to put brackets, because that is too much to remember every time.

What if we added "talk" or "rp" to our names every time we were doing one, but if we wanted to crossover, we go:(Rp: etc etc etc)Or(Talk: etc etc etc)

Adra, that's a good idea, but I'm very hesitant to ask people go try and make us notice them more, because that means we pretty much just go back to where we were before. And as Star pointed out, no one is going to try too hard to draw attention to themselves when they feel worthless. It's hard enough to comment anything at all. We can't ask that of people.

And I'm worried about what Fabi said- that we'll be more careful for a while, but after some time fall back into the same problem.

Ok, my previous comment was about Adra's first idea- I like the second one a lot. We might actually be able to have completely separate things going on in the same place with that. Like, there have been times when three people who wanted to talk came on at once, but they all thought everyone was roleplaying, so they left. Changing the names could be a great idea, so people would know who they can talk to easily and who they might need to be more direct to get attention from. We could hypothetically have a group of people chatting and a group of people rping on the same page at the same time. I like that idea a lot.

Whereas some peoples, like me, are just shy and go hide in corners. XD

@Flame: No, because you can only roleplay when the right people are here and it is moving. It doesn't happen at will. Like you can't sit down at a computer, think WRITE, and write. You have to wait for the flow before you can go with it. :)

And, when people need help, they need help THEN. My friend has a badge that says 'SHIT HAPPENS' on it and it's epic, and shit does happen, and when shit happens, it doesn;t just say "Oh hey now would be a good time to happen I'll happen now", r "Nah hell naw I won't happen now coz they're roleplaying" - SHIT JUST HAPPENS WHEN SHIT HAPPENS, AND SHIT HAPPENS, AND THAT BADGE IF EPIC, AND SUPERNOODLES. XD